Lifelong Democrat who became independent gives series of warnings to former party and predicts US \u2018is not going left\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US senator Joe Manchin<\/a>, a lifelong Democrat who left the party earlier this year to become an independent and is now stepping down from the Senate after 15 years, issued a series of warnings on Sunday to members of his former party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe D-brand has been so maligned from the standpoint of \u2013 it\u2019s just, it\u2019s toxic,\u201d Manchin told CNN<\/a>, saying he had not been able to consider himself a Democrat \u201cin the form of what Democratic party has turned itself into\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Manchin, a wealthy coal tycoon, said the party\u2019s approach had become censorious and dictatorial to ordinary Americans, and he blamed progressives for the shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey have basically expanded upon thinking: \u2018Well, we want to protect you there, but we\u2019re going to tell you how you should live your life from that far on,\u2019\u201d Manchin told the outlet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Manchin predicted the country \u201cis not going left\u201d and said a party that has once been focused on basic issues, \u201cgood job, a good pay\u201d, was now preoccuppied with social issues that were sensitive \u2013 singling out LGBTQ+ rights \u2013 while neither they nor Republicans<\/a> took responsibility for the federal budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The senator also said Republicans lacked common sense on the issue of gun control, and neither had adopted a reasonable approach to the perennially high number of mass shootings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019re too extreme \u2013 it\u2019s just common sense,\u201d Manchin said of parties. \u201cSo the Democrats<\/a> go too far, want to ban. The Republican says: \u2018Oh, let the good times roll. Let anybody have anything they want.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked about remarks made by Greg Casar, incoming chair of the progressive wing in Congress, that Democrats would have won the election if they were more like progressive congresswoman Pramila Jayapal<\/a>, Manchin responded: \u201cFor someone to say that, they\u2019ve got to be completely insane.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The senator also blamed Kamala Harris<\/a>\u2019s White House election loss to Donald Trump in November on her struggle to cast herself as a moderate candidate after supporting progressive causes during her Democratic nomination run in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you try to be somebody you\u2019re not, it\u2019s hard,\u201d Manchin noted. The senator did not publicly support Harris\u2019s campaign. On Sunday, he declined to say which candidate he voted for in November \u2013 but said he likes the president-elect<\/a> and had recently told him: \u201cI want to help any way I can\u201d and want him to succeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery red-blooded American should want your president to succeed, whether you vote for him or not, whether the same party or not, whether you like him or not\u201d, Manchin added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he also said he believed it is time for a third party in the US \u2013 called the American party \u2013 that would serve as center ground for moderate Democrats and Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe centrist-moderate vote decides who\u2019s going to be the president of the United States. And when they get here, they don\u2019t govern that way. Neither side does. They go to their respective corners,\u201d Manchin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf the center had a voice and had a party that could make both of these \u2013 the Democrat, Republican party \u2013 come back, OK, that would be something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n